STRONG SEASON CONCLUDES — The Oak Glen volleyball team finished as Class AA runners up on Thursday at the state volleyball tournament. - Michael Griffith

CHARLESTON — It always appeared all season Oak Glen and Philip Barbour would clash in the West Virginia Class AA state title match.

And it appeared it would go down to the wire.

Defending Class AA champions Oak Glen and last year’s Class AA runner-up Philip Barbour battled to the end, but the Colts came away with their third title in four seasons with a 25-22, 13-25, 25-21, 19-25, 15-12 victory on Thursday in the championship match at the Charleston Coliseum.

“Today doesn’t define who we are,” Oak Glen coach Morgan Saddler said. “We’ve accomplished a lot this season. We toughened the schedule. We played some Pennsylvania teams, some Ohio teams and some of the best teams in West Virginia. I feel like that was a benefit going into the state tournament. We were also OVAC champions. This was a great group of girls who accomplished a lot. We have a lot to be proud of.”

It was Philip Barbour’s seventh overall state title. The Colts finished 44-13-1. Oak Glen finished 28-8-3.

“We didn’t expect anything less from them,” Saddler said. “It was a battle and we played our hearts and left everything on the floor. Unfortunately it just didn’t go our way today.”

The Colts led 19-13 in the first set but top-seeded Oak Glen scored eight straight to take a two-point lead. The Colts countered with five straight points and got the first game in the books with an Avery McDaniel’s kill.

“The first set we started off slow, but we were able to get some momentum heading into that second set,” Saddler said.

Oak Glen, ranked No. 1 in Class AA by MaxPreps, dominated the second set with an eight-point run which allowed the Bears to pull away for a 12-point win.

“We went in to the second set fired up with a lot of momentum and we took it by a pretty big margin,” Saddler said.

An Averi Martin ace in the third game pushed the Bears to a 14-8 lead and eventually moved the advantage to 18-10 before the Colts scored six points to get back in the game. Philip Barbour then snatched the momentum to score a third set win.

“We were up pretty big, but we weren’t able to capitalize in critical situations,” Saddler said.

Oak Glen led by leads of 10-5, 14-8 and 16-10 before fending off a late challenge by the Colts in its fourth game victory.

“We went into the fourth set knowing it was do or die,” Saddler said. “We needed it to push the fifth set and we were able to come together to maximize some great opportunities.”

In the fifth set, the Colts had leads of 7-4, 10-6, 11-7 and 13-10, but Oak Glen managed to get within one at 13-12 late before second-ranked Philip Barbour put the match away.

“We went into the fifth set with a lot of momentum but we made some errors in some big moments,” Saddler said. “It didn’t help us out any, but it was a fantastic match. We were closing in at the end of the fifth set. We were down a few points and never stopped swinging. We were playing to win, but unfortunately it didn’t go our way.”

For the Golden Bears, Mckenzi Martin had 12 kills and nine digs; Brooklyn Six six digs and 22 kills; Addison Smith 14 digs and two assists; Mikalyn Balch three aces, seven digs, a kill and 50 assists; Kendall Six three digs; Reecelyn Craig 13 kills, three blocks, three digs and two aces; Averi Martin 16 kills, two aces and three digs and Haylee Stewart two kills.

Mackenna Halfin had 25 kills and six blocks for the winners. Izzy Knotts added 11 kills, 21 points and four blocks. Finley Carpenter added 24 assists, while McDaniel had 16 assists and seven kills.

Match notes

• The Class AA tournament team was Brooklyn Six (Oak Glen), Mckenzi Martin (Oak Glen), Tia Vick (Oak Glen), Jocie Harris (Buffalo), Madalyn Morris (Charleston Catholic), Mackenna Halfin (Philip Barbour), Finley Carpenter (Philip Barbour) and Izzy Knotts (Philip Barbour).